Tourism workers and civil servants need to out Alden and his selfish crew
Shameless writes: When I was growing up, we used to sing a chorus in Sunday school that said:
J O y
J O Y
That must surely mean
Jesus first
Yourself last
Others in between.
That little chorus engraved basic principles that have served many well over the years, particularly those with a genuine commitment to serving the people.
It seems, however, that Alden learned a different chorus and has now taught it to his enablers:
Y O U
Y O U
That must surely mean
Yourself first
Unnah last and
Others in between.
We’ve all seen the reports of Alden promising persons in the tourism sector that IF he and his Alliance buddies are elected, he’ll give them an additional $500 per month. Someone has seemingly complained to the Elections Office about his statement.
His response to the Cayman Compass when asked about it was: “Elections are precisely about what candidates promise to do if elected. That is the purpose of campaigns.” That is the type of arrogant dismissal that Alden is known for.
Imagine someone calls you and says, “I’m hungry bro. What do you have to eat?” You have food you can offer but you have also been wondering how you can get something that you need from the hardware store. You could reply, “Well, stop by and I’ll fix you something.”
That’s promising the person that if they stop by, you’ll give them something to eat. Or, you can use their need for food to try to get what you want from the store and say, “Okay, I need something from the store. Stop by me and I’ll give you the money and you can run and pick it up for me. When you come back, I’ll fix you something to eat.”
What Alden’s brush-off answer ignores is whether the person making the promise has the ability NOW to provide what he is promising or whether he needs TO GET ELECTED to do so. While 43 of the 50 candidates need to get elected to have a chance to influence government spending and fulfill a promise, seven candidates – he and his six ministers – have the ability NOW to fulfill promises.
They didn’t promise to pave roads here, there and everywhere IF ELECTED, but hot mix has been falling like rain for weeks. And while every one of the 43 candidates have promised to do something about the dump, only he and his minsters could give the green light NOW to the mega deal that was just signed with DART.
What Alden and his crew are doing to tourism sector workers is trying to use their plight to try to leverage their vote. They don’t need to. They could have decided to pay them the increase for a period just as they decided to pay Island Paving millions of dollars over the past few months. It’s that simple.
And that is not the worst thing that this greedy bunch has been up to lately by any means.
Tucked away in the final three pages, 326-328, of Extraordinary Gazette No.1/2021, published on 06 January 2021, is a Notice which states:
“The Civil Service Pay Scales for Salaried Staff, which come into effect on 1st January 2021, approved in accordance with Personnel Regulations (2019 Revisions) Schedule 2: Remuneration Bands, are hereby published.”
You wouldn’t have read about this here on CNS, in other local publications or seen it on CIGTV News Brief. In fact, even if you looked on the website of the Portfolio of the Civil Service (here), the logical authority on matters such as salary scales, what you will see is a link to the Salary Scales as of 01-Jan-2020.
There is no mention of the Civil Service Pay Scales which came into effect on 01January 2021. So the public who pays for these new salaries wouldn’t know what increases were awarded unless you subscribe to the Gazette or go on the Gazette website. Guess that’s World Class transparency!
A comparison of the 2020 and 2021 Salary Scales shows that only the top 4 grades, D up to A, have changed. The entry point of grades D, C and B have increased by 7.7% while the entry point of grade A has increased by 16.0%. And who are the reapers of these increases?
The entire elected cadre of MLA’s, including the speaker, ministers and the premier, viz:
| Premier | 16% increase from a measly $202,536pa to $234,900pa |
| Deputy Premier | 16% increase from a measly $192,804pa to $223,572pa |
| Speaker | 7.7% increase from a measly $188,076pa to $202,512pa |
| Ministers | 7.7% increase from a measly $174,636pa to $188,076pa |
| Leader of Opposition | 7.7% increase from a measly $141,456pa to $152,340pa |
| All other MLAs | 7.7% increase from a measly $121,212pa to $130,512pa |
Yes:
- all those prayers and foreign languages got Jon Jon a 7.7% raise;
- keeping the NRA from touching the horse place after they got the Grand Court to lift his injunction got Roy a 7.7% raise;
- almost hanging a $200M+ cruise port around our necks got Moses a 7.7% increase;
- consistently showing the real meaning of ‘clueless’ got Joey a 7,7% increase;
- saying nothing in 4 years got Capt Eugene and David a 7.7% raise;
- turning out to be a poodle in the LA after sounding like a rottweiler on Rooster got Austin a 7.7% increase;
- causing no end of embarrassment got McKeeva a 7.7% raise; and
- keeping their lips zipped about McKeeva’s assault of a woman got Barbara, Julie and Tara 7.7% raises too.
You read right!
It wasn’t just elected officials who have reaped the fruits of this though:
| Deputy Governor | 16% increase from a measly $183,504pa to $212,796pa |
| Attorney General & Financial Secretary | 7.7% increase from a measly $174,636pa to $188,076pa |
| Auditor Gen., Cabinet Sec, Chief Officers, Comm. of Police, District Comm. & UK Rep | 7.7% increase from a measly $141,456pa to $152,340pa |
| Directors of Ed Services, Planning, PWD, Tourism, Ombudsman, et al | 7.7% increase from a measly $121,212pa to $130,512pa |
And yes, the governor would also have reaped a 16% increase since his salary is a markup of the DG’s salary.
And the rest of the civil service, the people who actually do the work?
| Uniformed officers who enforced the social discipline to get us here | 0.0% |
| Sanitation workers who collected our garbage | 0.0% |
| Public health and others who administered the tests and vaccinated us | 0.0% |
| Civil servants who kept the business of government going | 0.0% |
| Civil servants toiling to try to make Ministers look good for election | 0.0% |
That’s right – 0.0% increase from ‘what they were getting’ to ‘what they still getting’!
Now you understand what Alden’s lil chorus means:
Y O U
Y O U
That must surely mean
Yourself (he and his enablers) first
Unnah (ordinary civil service) last and
Others (tourism workers if his slate gets elected) in between.
No one should need a clearer example of the priorities of Alden and his followers. They have shown us over and over that their priorities are not the average Caymanian, and not Cayman. Their focus is on themselves and the elites that they serve.
One can only hope that civil servants and unemployed tourism workers show Alden and his followers how they truly feel about how they have been treated by voting for anyone other than a PPM Alliance candidate on 14 April.
N.B. All of the salaries quoted are based on the first point of the scale except for those of the premier, deputy premier and speaker who, in accordance with Schedule 1 of the Legislative Assembly (Management) Law, 2020, are at points A5, A3 and B4, respectively.
Furthermore, Schedules 1 and 2 afford a plethora of additional benefits, some at the discretion of the premier.
Correction: The salaries for “Auditor Gen., Cabinet Sec, Chief Officers, Comm. of Police, District Comm. & UK Rep” and “Directors of Ed Services, Planning, PWD, Tourism, Ombudsman, et al” have been corrected.
Category: Viewpoint & Analysis
